


Let Me Take Care of You For Once

by combeferre_writer01



Series: The Witcher Stories [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Geralt Whump, Jaskier is a bean who needs a hug, Magic Blocking, Other, Violence, and a new lute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22261261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/combeferre_writer01/pseuds/combeferre_writer01
Summary: Tumblr Post: Now that I’ve finished watching The Witcher, I can safely say I want Geralt to get whumped so bad. Like give me Geralt getting kidnapped, having his powers blocked and beaten and tortured. Does he eventually break if kept there suffering long enough? God yes! Does Jaskier come and save him with other people? Yes! Have Jaskier look after him, worried about his friend!!
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: The Witcher Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599160
Comments: 10
Kudos: 471





	Let Me Take Care of You For Once

This had been going on for three days. Who would have known it would’ve been this damn hard to torture information out of a Witcher? The wounds the Nilfgard torturer inflicted were scarred over already. They had yet to break him; get so much as a whimper out of him. They’d gotten a few grunts, but nothing else other than some wiseass comments. The Nilfgard soldiers could take turns torturing this mutant for the rest of his prolonged natural life and they still wouldn’t get any of the desired information from him. The only way to break a magical being would be to use what created it: magic.

“You want me to enchant the chains holding Geralt of Rivia? The White Wolf? Are you a fool? I’m not touching his chains.” The mage speaking was in chains herself. 

Geralt’s gold eyes met her teal ones, an unspoken communication passing through them. She shook her head.

“Do it or we’ll kill you now,” the guard promised.

“Rather that than him hunting me down later.”

“I have no quarrel with you, sister. Saving yourself will not result in my harming you later,” Geralt spoke, not taking his eyes off of hers. 

“Forgive me, brother.” the mage closed her eyes and said a few words in Elder. 

Geralt withered in his bonds, groaning as the magic usually at his fingertips was pushed down to somewhere he couldn’t reach it. The lights in his eyes faded and he went slack. The only sign of life was the Witcher’s panting, the muscles in his back heaving back dancing under his skin. 

The mage tried to get to him but was yanked back by the guard holding the chains around her wrists. 

Someone’s magic being held from them plays on their mind before too long and that’s when the Nilgard torturer would take his actions.

* * *

Emradot, the mage, sat cross-legged on the floor of her cell. Anyone would think she was meditating, but anyone with magic knew better.

“Can anyone hear me?” Emradot spoke in her head. “Please! Someone hear me. They’re going to kill him.”

“Kill who? Where are you?” 

“Geralt of Rivia: the White Wolf.”

Emradot told the other mage the name of the castle hold they were in but couldn’t give directions because she was blindfolded when she was brought in a week ago.

* * *

One second, Jaskier was singing  _ Of a Rose Synge We _ in a tavern, and the next, he was being pushed through a portal and vomiting his lunch onto the steps of a castle holds dungeon.

“What the  _ fuck _ are you doing?” Jaskier hissed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

Yennefer spun on her heels and looked Jaskier in the eyes, her violet irises ablaze. “I’m going to slaughter every damned fool in there. They’ve had Geralt for a week-- it took me days to find this minute shitstain on a map.”

“They-they have Geralt?” Jaskier instantly got more worried for his friend and his annoyance with Yen left him. 

“I have no idea what condition he’s going to be in. We’re the only friends he has and he’s going to need us. While I take care of everyone else, you free Geralt and I’ll portal us out.” 

Jaskier nodded, stopping himself from asking if the portal was going to make him sick again.

Yen whispered a spell in Elder and the door to the prison blasted inward. She was too angry to care about stealth. She only wanted two things: to get Geralt to safety and to kill everyone in the castle hold. 

The man Yen killed provided her with a sword which made going through the men easier. Jaskier couldn’t stop himself from watching for a few seconds before he remembered he was supposed to be finding Geralt. 

Jaskier ran through the prison looking in all of the cells when he heard a yell so deep it could only be Geralt...or a bear. He forced himself to move faster and came the cell on the left.

In the cell was something he never thought he’d see and something he knew he’d never forget. Geralt was on the floor with chains around his wrists, cowering from a man with a whip in his hand standing over him. The man drew back his arm to swing again.

“Get away from him!” Jaskier yelled, getting the attention off of Geralt. 

The man turned and whipped at Jaskier, who--suddenly remembering his lute was in his hand-- held the instrument up and the whip coiled itself around the neck and snapped one of the strings, causing Jaskier to cry out as it cut through his sleeve and sliced a bleeding gash in his arm. 

The torturer yanked back on the whip and Jaskier let go of the lute. The momentum brought the lute back to the man and it shattered against his head. He stumbled back from the force and the resounding crack of the skull on the stonewall told Jaskier the bastard would never walk again. The blood oozing from the brown hair only confirmed it. 

Jaskier quickly searched him for the keys, pushing the fact that he was touching a dead body out of his mind. Geralt was all that mattered at this moment. The bard knelt down and began unchaining Geralt, who flinched back. 

“Please stop,” he croaked out. 

“Yennefer and I are getting you out of here, Geralt. You’re safe.”

When the lock finally opened, Geralt released a ground trembling shout of agony, magic flooding back into his veins. The sudden burst of power knocked Jaskier back a few feet. Favouring his newly wounded forearm, Jaskier picked himself up and scrambled back to Geralt to help him up as the walls to crumble. 

Yen ran into the cell, Emradot behind her, and opened a portal. She held it open as Emradot helped Jaskier carry Geralt through, Yen running in after them, closing the portal. 

Jaskier quickly set to calming the panicking Geralt. His breathing was fast and heavy, the poor Witcher shaking like a leaf. He tried backing away from Jaskier, releasing the closest thing his body could make to a whimper.

The two mages watched with saddened eyes as Jaskier gently hugged Geralt, the larger man breaking down to the last step and curled smaller into Jaskier’s arms, crying into the bard’s shoulder.

* * *

Geralt was finally asleep after Jaskier sang softly and ran his nimble fingers through the Witcher’s hair for 20 minutes. 

“Your arm still needs tending to,” Emradot whispered to Jaskier. 

The bard looked down at his arm. The appendage was still bleeding, though much slower as it began to scab. “I forgot about it.” Jaskier didn’t take his eyes off of Geralt. His wounds had been tended to, his inner magic already healing some of them. 

Emradot lifted Jaskier’s arm and began cleaning the wound. He didn’t make a sound and shifted his gaze to stare at the ground. 

“I think this needs to be stitched,” Emradot said with remorse. “Yen?”

“I’ll do it.” She nodded. She sterilized the needle she used to stitch up Geralt’s worst wounds. She rethreaded the needle but concern bubbled up when Jaskier barely flinched when the needle sunk into his pale skin. “Jaskier? Are you alright?”

“I killed a man,” he whispered.

“The one hurting Geralt?” Yen kept her voice down, her eyes soft like she didn’t want to scare Jaskier away. Mutely, Jaskier nodded. “He wasn’t a man, Jaskier. Not anymore. He may have had the face of one, but someone capable of inflicting that much pain on another person? I doubt he was ever human.”

“How did he die?” Emradot asked. 

Jaskier retold the story with hardly any details. How he let go and the man tumbled back. Suddenly, the bard felt he had a grasp on why Geralt was so stingy with the details. 

“You were defending yourself and saved Geralt. It’s not your fault.” Emradot tried to ease Jaskier’s mind of the body numbing guilt.

“But what if he had a family waiting for him? What if-”

“He didn’t think about what family Geralt could have been taken from,” Emradot pointed out. 

Yen finished stitching Jaskier’s wound and wrapped it in clean linen. “You did the best thing you could have, Jaskier, and you did it bravely.”

Jaskier said nothing else as he laid down beside Geralt and curled in on himself, pillowed his head on his arms, and cried himself silently to sleep.

* * *

During the night when the moon was still high in the sky, Jaskier awoke to rapid breathing and Emradot’s panicked whispers, Yen nowhere in sight. Geralt was the one with laboured breathing, his bandage wrapped chest heaving with effort. Jaskier hurried over, budging Emradot out his way. He gently began carding his hand through Geralt’s white hair, the other resting on the Witcher’s nearest shoulder, the thumb moving in a small circular motion.

“You’re alright, Geralt.” Jaskier breathed. Still exhausted, Jaskier leaned his forehead on Geralt’s and began to sing softly:

_ This is railed on a rys; _

_ He hath bought the of prys, _

_ And in tyme soth hit ys, _

_ Viri sine semine. _

* * *

When Geralt woke up a few hours later, Jaskier’s head rested on his shoulder, the bard’s hand still in his hair. Geralt looked around and finally took in their surroundings: an open area in the woods, a stream running nearby though he couldn’t see it; Emradot sturred a pot of something over a fire. Confusion crossed his eyes.

“You got us out,” he choked.

“Yennefer and Jaskier got us out.” Emradot looked up. “I suspect the young bard won’t be himself for a few days at least.”

Geralt cleared his throat. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He takes blame for the death of the jailer.”

Geralt tightly closed his eyes. Of everything--every pain, every poison--the one thing Geralt never wanted Jaskier to feel, it was the emptiness that fills you after killing another human. It always came after a human. The rapist when he was young, Renfree. It doesn’t go away. It lessens sometimes for a while but it always comes back. 

Geralt made no movements to wake Jaskier but rather willed himself back to sleep.

* * *

Jaskier was far too silent for Geralt’s or Yen’s liking. He only spoke when spoken to and gave one to three-word answers at that. A few times, he would check on Geralt’s wounds. Geralt knew newer wounds had to be checked more often but he also knew Jaskier wasn’t as versed in healing as either mage nor himself. Helping someone who’s injured right after killing someone can be vital for your mental health. However, it can become your undoing if you aren’t careful. 

Geralt pushed himself to sit up, propping his heavily bandaged torso up on the tree behind him. Jaskier rushed to help him but faltered when Geralt held his hand up to stop him, riding out the pain. After a couple of seconds, Geralt waved Jaskier over. His enormous hand swallowed Jaskier’s much smaller hand as the Witcher tugged Jaskier to join him under the tree.

“You really shouldn’t be-”

“Shut up.” Geralt grumbled. “Do you know how many men I’ve killed, Jaskier?” the bard shook his head. “More in number than years you’ve been breathing. The soul drinking remorse you feel right now,” Geralt tapped Jaskier’s chest where his heart sat, “goes away after some time… If you let it. Did I ever tell you about the first man I killed?”

“No.”

“I was young. Even by human standards. I wasn’t yet an adult myself. A girl Rivia--a couple of years younger than me--was being raped by a man. So I killed him in two strokes. I felt as heartless as you do now. But as the girl became more herself again and started helping her mother...playing with her friends… I started thinking. 

“If I hadn’t killed that man, he would’ve kept raping that girl and others. My killing him…” Geralt grit his teeth, “...was the lesser evil. Do you understand what I’m saying, Jaskier?”

Jaskier was totally baffled. Geralt never about his past unless he was telling the story of a monster. This man fit those qualifications but he couldn’t comprehend why Geralt was telling the story.

“No.”

“What would have happened if you managed to catch the man before he hit his head?”

“He would have killed me then you because he knew there were two mages in the hall.”

“Exactly. By letting him hit his head, you saved me, yourself, and kept Yen and Emradot from further harm. You helped protect others.”

Jaskier stared at the ground, not sure what to say or think. 

“When did you last sleep?”

“The night before we got you and Emradot out…” Jaskier’s mumble was shy and uncertain. Two things the bard never was.

Geralt’s cat-like eyes widened. “That was three days ago.”

“I know.” 

Geralt eased Jaskier to lie down, his head in the Witcher’s lap. Jaskier tried to sit up, but Geralt’s arm across his shoulder stopped that outright. “Let me take care of you for once.” 

“You always take care of me,” Jaskier protested weekly. 

“Not like this. Go to Sleep, Jaskier.” 


End file.
